Ai Engineering Manager: Lead Production Ml Systems

Nine; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 240,000 - 340,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

18 weeks paid parental leave

Stan subscription benefit

Digital newspaper subscription

Job summary

Nine is Australia’s largest locally owned media company, leading AI-driven products across its brands. As Engineering Manager, AI, you will guide the AI engineering function, partnering with a dedicated AI Product team to ship production AI software.

You will balance modern AI tooling with robust system architecture, oversee end-to-end builds, and ensure production readiness and operational stability for audience-facing applications.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of commercial software engineering experience with production systems.
• 3+ years in a technical leadership or engineering management role.

Responsibilities

• Lead Nine's AI Engineering function and mentor ML/AI engineers.
• Set software quality standards and drive CI/CD, testing, and architecture decisions.
• Own architecture for AI systems across GCP/AWS and EKS/GKE environments.
• Improve Agile/Scrum workflows and remove blockers to ship high-quality software.

Skills

People leadership

Python

Go

LLMs & AI frameworks

System design

Agile/Scrum

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/SE

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform/OpenTofu

GCP/AWS

Vertex AI

Job description

AI Engineering Manager: Lead Production ML Systems Nine•Sydney, NSW, AU

Job Description

Company Description

Nine is Australia's largest locally owned media company. Working at Nine, you'll have access to a unique range of experiences and opportunities, helping drive the success of the country's most trusted television, radio, digital and publishing brands.

Our content reaches almost every Australian - meaning what we do has real impact. We bring people together, celebrate the big moments, and capture the everyday ones.

Some of our most beloved brands have been part of Australian life for generations, and others - new on the scene - have already found their place firmly in our lives. We're evolving and we need people like you to bring new ideas, innovate and make your mark.

The Data Science & AI team sits within Nine's Digital group, building AI-powered products that create genuine value for Nine's business and its audiences. The team operates across two complementary tracks: a Data Science function focused on modelling and business optimisation; and an AI Engineering function that designs and ships production AI software.

As Engineering Manager, AI, you will lead Nine's AI Engineering function, driving software engineering standards across the build, deployment, and operation of our AI products. Working in close partnership with a dedicated AI Product team, you will guide the team through end-to-end software builds that span internal agentic workflow automation to audience-facing features. You will ensure our products are built to last in production, balancing modern AI tooling (LLMs, agentic frameworks, and GCP/AWS) with clean code and robust system architecture.

What You'll Do

• People Operations & Team Leadership: Mentor and grow a high-performing ML and AI engineering team. Build a culture centered on technical craft, cross-skilling, and continuous learning.
• Engineering Standards & Governance: Set the benchmark for software quality by driving best practices in clean architecture, CI/CD, testing, and system design through hands-on code reviews and design sessions.
• Architecture & System Design: Own the technical architecture for AI-powered systems across GCP and AWS (EKS), balancing pragmatic, fast delivery with long-term scalability and maintainability.
• Production & Operations Integrity: Maintain operational stability, monitoring, and incident management for high-availability, customer-facing AI applications running in production.
• Delivery & Execution: Optimise Agile/Scrum workflows, remove technical and organisational blockers, and keep the team shipping high-quality software consistently.

What You'll Bring

• 7+ years of commercial software engineering experience, with a proven track record of shipping and operating production systems.
• 3+ years in a technical leadership or engineering management role, with demonstrated experience mentoring and growing engineers.
• Strong programming skills in Python, with familiarity with Go considered a plus.
• Experience designing and building backend systems and APIs, with a solid grounding in software architecture principles.
• Hands-on experience with GCP and/or AWS cloud platforms.
• Proficiency with CI/CD pipelines and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform or OpenTofu).
• A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience building applications with LLMs, agentic AI frameworks, RAG, vector databases, or embedding models.
• Exposure to Google Cloud AI services (Vertex AI, Agent Runtime), MLOps practices, or multi-modal AI systems.
• Containerisation and orchestration experience using Docker and Kubernetes (EKS or GKE).
• Prior experience in a media, publishing, or digital content organisation.

Additional Information

How we work

At Nine, our flexible work options vary by role and team. Depending on the position, this may include flexible hours, hybrid work, or part-time arrangements. We welcome discussing your flexibility needs during the hiring process - just ask the Talent Acquisition team.

Our Employee Benefits Include

• 18 weeks paid parental leave with no distinction between primary and secondary carers
• Access to 'Employee Exclusives' program - a way of getting closer to our incredible brands, offering unique experiences, behind-the-scenes access, and awesome perks.
• Digital newspaper subscription to our mastheads
• Annual gift voucher for Stan subscription
• More info at Nine Careers

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

We're committed to a safe, respectful and inclusive Nine. From day one, you'll be encouraged to bring your whole self to work and will be supported to perform at your best.

We encourage applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people with disabilities, and of all ages, genders, nationalities, backgrounds and cultures as we recognise the importance and value of diverse perspectives. Should you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please advise us when you apply.

Work rights: Please note to apply for this role you must already have the right to lawfully work and live in Australia.